GippsGirl

Sorry I was MIA recently – thanks to all for contributing and it looks as though you’ve all sorted things. Well done, going to look at new comp stuff now

At the risk of sounding ageist, is it not the case that a high(ish) percentage of those doing degrees/Masters are quite young, and are unlikely to yet have the confidence/experience to ignore publishers et al?

I think there is a different approach to writing if you do a degree/Masters in it. It’s almost as though, at the point of graduation, most folk have a perceived idea of what writing should be. Qualifying this because I know a creative writing lecturer, and am in a facebook group for one of the CW courses at a local uni. Some of the stuff I see…[Read more]

To some extent (not that I’ve done any really full-on writing courses, just SE, some reading and building on experience) I do notice that my very early writing has a freshness of approach that more recent, more self-conscious writing does not.

And I do cheer when I come across writers such as Eimear McBride and Eley Williams (both James Tait…[Read more]

Drink with a dead man – and apologies, 410 words

Innocuous in colour as a Rich Tea biscuit, the envelope was angled so as to fit into the grey metal cell of the Post Restante box. Illuminated by the single bare bulb in the narrow passage between front and rear of the shop, the vertical/horizontal of the letter’s shadow made of it a hitman, w…[Read more]

Apologies…409 words. 😉

By Tilda’s twenty-sixth attempt to produce an illuminorb, Silviu’s patience was wearing thin.

“Concentrate, Tilda,” the Ambakian powermage snapped.

“I am concentrating.” Tilda rubbed her palm against her trouser leg. It felt hot; surely she must’ve been close to pulling the Power down that time?

“Aga…[Read more]

Untitled

The pirogue nudged its way between the cypress stumps, lily pads parting in its path and reuniting in its wake. The only sounds came from the rustle of leaves in the slight breeze and the occasional slap and roil of a feeding bass. It was late afternoon; a low sun dappled the brown surface of the bayou and the shadows pointed like…[Read more]

The Memory Thing

I think it was reproach: that look on his face; or maybe despair. I only had a second to work it out as he fell backwards onto the tracks. That’s an odd way to put it. I mean, I wasn’t actually trying to work anything out, let alone his expression. And I was shocked; I hardly registered what happened. This man, this young man…[Read more]

Fabulous piece, Raine.

Well done, Raine!

Before I forget to say it “Great blog, Richard”.

The same sort of appalling victim-blaming appears to have been prevalent in the much more recent Yorkshire Ripper enquiry. According to a recent documentary, the police assumed the ripper, Sutcliffe, was punishing prostitutes when, in fact, he was preying on their vulnerability. At one point they failed to “credit” a victim to him because she…[Read more]

Could not agree with you more on that, @Raine. There is no shame in surviving. Doing what you have to do in a system stacked against you.

This is so interesting, Richard. I don’t have any special knowledge about the Ripper case but it does sound like this is historical writing being bent to fit at agenda. I recently met with an Australian writer, Clare Wright, who won a major prize down here (the Stella Prize) for her book on women at the Eureka Stockade – an historical event that…[Read more]

Read this Richard as I’d watched the recent programme with the woman who is the lead in Silent Witness, an ex-prison governor with experience of serial killers and an ex-cold case copper, which looked at the Ripper story in light of modern techniques.

It was fascinating – a lot of the info I’d heard before, but what came clearly across is that…[Read more]

Thanks guys!